5 Incredible Things You'll Learn in First Grade

Kindergarten begins the reading process, and by the start of first grade, most students know their letters and can sound out and recognize a lot of words. Some can even read fluently.

In first grade, reading skills move past simply reading and enter the comprehension zone. Words and sentences are no longer mysterious codes; they're meaningful expressions of thoughts and actions and pictures and sounds.

This year, your child will start to read stories -- real stories -- and talk about them afterward. He or she will consider various events in the story, express opinions about them, and start to look deeper, all the way to "why" and "how" and "what if." You may find your first grader suddenly having a whole lot to say about the bedtime stories you've been reading together since birth.